A New Non-Thermal Process Is Making Metal 3D Printing Powder Cheaper

Most metal 3D printing powder starts as a blob of metal melted into droplets and cooled into tiny spheres. Gas atomization is the standard. It works. It also introduces a problem: every droplet that solidifies traps a tiny pore inside the sphere. Multiply that by millions of particles and you have a feedstock full of defects waiting to become print failures.

Metal Powder Works takes a different path. Its patented DirectPowder process never melts the material. Instead, it shears solid bar stock into powder while the metal stays below its melting point. No phase change means no new porosity. The powder that comes out has the same internal structure as the rod it came from.

John Barnes, the company's CEO, discussed the process in a recent TCT Magazine podcast. He started Metal Powder Works in 2017 to solve a problem he saw in aerospace and defense supply chains: inconsistent powder quality from traditional producers. Seven years later the company has more than 30 powder products and plans to scale from 100 tons per year to 800 tons by mid-2027.

Why staying solid matters

Atomized powder is full of hollow spheres and satellites, those smaller blobs that stick to larger ones during cooling. These hollow regions create stress concentrations inside the final printed part. Under load, cracks start at these pores and propagate through the material.

DirectPowder avoids that by design. The company uses a solid-state shear process to fracture the metal into particles while keeping the microstructure intact. Barnes says this maintains the temper of the original bar stock and gives users a powder that behaves more predictably during melting and consolidation.

The process also handles material changeovers quickly. Traditional atomization lines need long purges and qualification runs when switching alloys. DirectPowder can move between materials with less downtime, which matters when you are producing small batches for defense or medical programs that change specifications often.

The scaling challenge

From 100 tons to 800 tons in a year sounds aggressive. Barnes acknowledges that. The current facility in the United States runs batch processes. Scaling to eight times the output means either larger batch equipment or a shift toward continuous production. The company is likely to pursue both.

Defense and aerospace customers are driving the demand. The U.S. military wants domestic powder sources for titanium, nickel alloys, and specialty steels. Qualification cycles in those markets take years, not months. A powder producer that can demonstrate consistent chemistry and particle morphology gains a real advantage.

Environmental claims

Metal Powder Works also claims a 90 percent reduction in CO2 compared to gas atomization. The energy savings come from skipping the melt step. Melting titanium or nickel alloys requires sustained temperatures above 1,600 degrees Celsius. DirectPowder operates at much lower temperatures because it never fully liquefies the material.

That claim will need third-party verification before it becomes a selling point in regulated procurement. But if the numbers hold, it gives the company another lever against incumbent powder makers who are under pressure to decarbonize their own operations.

What this means for users

Better powder does not automatically mean better prints. Machine parameters still need tuning, and end-users need to qualify new feedstock in their own processes. But a powder with fewer internal defects should reduce scatter in mechanical properties. That makes certification easier and rework less frequent.

Binder jetting and directed energy deposition systems stand to benefit most. Both rely heavily on powder flowability and packing density. Solid-state powder with a more uniform particle shape could improve layer uniformity in binder jetting and reduce porosity in DED builds.

The metal AM industry has spent years chasing better printers. Barnes is betting that a better powder feedstock is the next frontier. If DirectPowder delivers on its promises, it could shift how metal AM users source one of their most basic inputs.